The single currency and european citizenship unveiling the other side of the coin

Acknowledgments vii List of Figures and Tables viii Introduction Giovanni Moro 1 ParT onE Multiple Links between Single Currency 1 Building citizenship in the post-modern Era: Dimensi

The Single Currency and

European

Citizenship

The Single Currency and

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Acknowledgments vii

List of Figures and Tables viii

Introduction Giovanni Moro 1

ParT onE Multiple Links between Single Currency

1 Building citizenship in the post-modern Era:

Dimensions of the other side of the coin

Giovanni Moro 7

2 Imaginary Europe: The euro as a symbol and

practice Kathleen R McNamara 22

3 The only wealth are human beings: Currency

between economy and citizenship Thierry Vissol 36

4 Trust in the euro: The single currency as

social construction of an institutional fact

Matthias Kaelberer 53

5 Forgotten dimensions: The euro in

scientific and policy literature Lucia Mazzuca and Roberto Ranucci 67

ParT Two The Single Currency and the

6 The unintended “Litmus Test”: The euro as a factor

of center-formation, trust enhancement, and identity building Daniela Piana 97

7 Two sides of the same coin? The euro and

Europeanization of collective identities

Thomas Risse 111

8 Why money can’t buy democracy: On the

detachment of the euro from EU citizenship

Eva G Heidbreder 123

9 Representation of identity: Euro and dollar as

identity builders Arianna Montanari 137

ParT ThrEE European Citizenship in the

10 In the light and shadow of the Single Currency:

European identity and citizenship Vivien A Schmidt 153

11 Divided by a common currency: The euro crisis

and European citizenship Cris Shore 168

12 Between natural and moral order of things: The

euro and the problem of agency Víctor Pérez-Díaz 182

13 Between illusion and disillusion: Public opinion

facing the euro crisis Nando Pagnoncelli 196

14 Back to the future? The euro and the EU silent

constitution building Dario Castiglione 218

Conclusions: The way forward Giovanni Moro 232

Bibliography 235

Index 253

The volume is published with the support of UniCredit Group as main partner of the program “The Other Side of The Coin The Single Currency and European Citizenship” and the European Commission “Europe for Citizens” program

liST of fiGurES and TablES

Figure 1.1 Map of the Eurozone 13

Figure 1.2 The euro and national currencies as mental

benchmarks for exceptional and ordinary purchases, 2003–10 16

Figure 1.3 Actual and perceived inflation in the euro

area, 1995–2004 17

Figure 3.1 EU membership versus the euro 38

Figure 5.1 No of items produced by each subject

(universe: 302 items) 74

Figure 5.2 The institutions’ focus rate on the other

side of the euro’s dimensions 79

Figure 5.3 The scientific community’s focus rate on

the other side of the euro’s dimensions 80

Figure 5.4 The media’s focus rate on the other side of

the euro’s dimensions 81

Figure 5.5 The banks’ focus rate on the other side of

the euro’s dimensions 82

Figure 5.6 The level of diffusion of the attention

toward the cultural dimension 83

Figure 5.7 The level of diffusion of the attention

toward the everyday life economy dimension 84

Figure 5.8 The level of diffusion of the attention

toward the social dimension 85

Figure 5.9 The level of diffusion of the attention

toward the political dimension 86

Figure 5.10 The level of diffusion of the attention

toward the context and development of the euro project’s aspects 86

Figure 5.11 Diffusion and depth levels of the other side

of the coin’s dimensions 88

Figure 6 1 Distribution of the positive stance taken by

European citizens toward the euro 103

Figure 10.1 Percentage of people who support the euro 161

Figure 13.1 Support to the euro 1998 vs 2002 198

Figure 13.2 The support to the euro in Italy 199

Figure 13.3 2001–02 average inflation rate 200

Figure 13.4 Support to EU membership 203

Figure 13.5 Benefits of EU Membership 204

Figure 13.6 The meaning of the EU 207

Figure 13.7 Negative meanings of the EU 2003–11 209

Figure 13.8 Consensus to the euro 2007–10 211

Figure 13.9 Consensus to the euro in 2010 212

Table 1.1 Dimensions of “The Other Side of the

Coin” and their observables 10

Table 1.2 References of euro coin and banknote

symbols to Civic/Cultural and Cooperative/ Integrative Dimensions 12

Table 5.1 Subjects and sources utilized in the research 70

Table 5.2 Time criteria used in the research 71

Table 5.3 The universe of the identified items 73

Table 5.4 No of items detected by the sources linked

to institutions and banks 75

Table 5.5 Index of the diffusion of the attention to

the other side of the coin’s dimensions 75

Table 5.6 The ratio of Occurrences/Items 76

Table 5.7 Occurrences of dimensions found for each

subject considered in the research 77

Table 5.8 Index of depth for the other side of the

coin’s dimensions 87

Table 5.9 Shares of diffusion and index of depth to

the other side of the coin’s dimensions 88

Table 13.1 Meanings of the EU 2004–11 208

Giovanni Moro

The project of this book rests on a paradox that is worth recalling It can be defined as follows: while the purpose of building European citizenship is the very rationale for the project of the single currency, the policy community and the scholars have mostly underestimated if not neglected this relation, in terms of public policy making and discourse as well as of interpretation and forecasting As a consequence, while the euro has strongly shaped European citizenship, especially from the moment of the changeover, it seems that few have noticed on it Thus, the main cornerstone of European citizenship has remained almost unknown or at least unrecognized

To explain this paradox, it is possible to mention some of the factors that,

prima facie, conspired to give rise to this blackout.

As for the policy community, when planning the implementation of the changeover, European institutions decided to focus the euro communication policy on the practical benefits of the single currency for the consumer citizens, rather than on its citizenship-building effects It is worth noticing that, on the contrary, the actual motivation for the great citizens’ support for this shift was “to enter Europe.” Nevertheless, the public message was “it

is useful,” and so it remained throughout the ten euro years, even when the single currency began to seem anything but a good idea

Moreover, the rough path of the Economic and Monetary Union has led to focusing attention pretty exclusively on macro-economic and global finance issues, to the detriment of citizenship-related topics It happened well before the explosion of the financial markets’ crisis in 2008 Indeed, it dates back at least to the phase (2003) in which France and Germany brought the Growth and Stability Pact under discussion This would not be relevant here, had it not led to the focusing of the attention and concerns of the public arena on macro-economic and public finance aspects of the coin

As for the scientific community, the preponderance of economy in the research and scientific debate on the topics related to the single currency must be noted The economists’ efforts, moreover, have been concentrated mostly on macro-economic and financial dynamics rather than, say, on

everyday life economy, affecting citizens in the flesh Political scientists too have paid attention above all to the question of EU economic governance, strengthening the underestimation of the other side of the coin.

Another element to be mentioned is that the single currency, as a citizenship-related topic, is trans-disciplinary That is, it does not clearly belong to the realm of a specific social science discipline, but is rather a shared field of research Since no one is its owner, it is easy for it to be forgotten or not considered Of course, this is a quite common situation in social sciences Nevertheless, in the case of the relation between the single currency and European citizenship, it has had a strong negative influence.Two other widespread factors should be taken into consideration The first is that the common discourse on European citizenship is characterized

by a strong normative approach, or even by an idealized view of citizenship, leading to its consideration as being an abstract model rather than an empirical phenomenon In this standard view, there is little or no room for something, so to say, as low as a currency Obviously, money cannot have any meaningful relation to the model of a “good European citizen,” as it is portrayed in many political science essays as well as in the European Union documents and in policy actors’ papers and positions

The second general factor is that the introduction of the single currency has usually been considered as a top-down operation only, in which the citizens’ task was just to accept and use the euro, adapting their habits to a radically new situation Of course, something such as a change in currency is definitely an elite-driven decision and process What has been missed in this vision, however, is that citizens are not passive recipients of such a change and what they actually do with a currency can make a big difference

As a consequence of all of that, the other side of the coin happened to remain hidden, poorly considered and almost not thematized, in spite of the strong relation between currency and citizenship, in the European case as well as in general

Looking at the scientific community, this blackout is even more striking, since, as someone said, the changeover has been “a huge applied social sciences experiment”: a deep and sudden change, involving hundreds of millions of people, and implying both a cognitive and an operational switch This switch should have required more than the 15 books, 2 book chapters, 22 scientific journal articles, and 70 scholars’ papers that have been found and classified

in a recent FONDACA research Though of unquestionable quality and value, these materials do not appear proportionate to the major event European institutions and citizens have faced during the life of the EU

Since something like “another side of the coin” does not exist in itself, it emerges as a scientific problem generated by this lack of consideration It can

be defined as the need for a positive definition and thematization of the macroeconomic and nonfinance dimensions that link the single currency to the building of European citizenship These dimensions cannot indeed be defined only in negative terms—as “non-something”—and this is another way to highlight the problem All the texts published in this book contribute

non-to addressing this problem, shedding more light on this phenomenon It should be added that their purpose, which is the same as of the book as a whole, is to promote a debate able to deal with the issue in greater depth and breadth Though it is no time for conclusive statements, a serious and well-grounded beginning cannot be further delayed.

Rome, June 2012This book is one of the products of the program “The Other Side of the Coin,” which FONDACA has been carrying out since 2009 It is a research and dialogue program that has involved a network of European and American scholars and experts The program has included various activities:

Assessment,” held in Pisa on 3 June 2009 in collaboration with the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies;

Currency and Citizenship,” held in Berlin on 11 October 2010 in collaboration with the Free University of Berlin;

containing the collected materials and open to the public;

written by Giovanni Moro with the collaboration of Lucia Mazzuca and Roberto Ranucci, intended to facilitate and enrich the public debate in Italy on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the changeover (Cooper publisher, Rome 2011)

More information on these activities and outputs, as well as on the further steps

of the program, can be found on the website www.theothersideofthecoin.eu.Several scholars and experts have taken part in the program activities They are Daniel Barbu (Bucharest University); Christian Calliess (Free University of Berlin), Dario Castiglione (University of Exeter); Stefan Collignon (Sant’Anna School for Advanced Studies of Pisa); Pier Virgilio Dastoli (a Director at the European Commission); Marco Frey (Sant’Anna School for Advanced Studies of Pisa); Anna Hechinger and Eva Heidbreder (Hertie School of Governance of Berlin); Hugo Kaufmann (City University of New York); Arianna Montanari (La Sapienza University of Rome); Nando Pagnoncelli (IPSOS); Daniela Piana (University of Bologna); Cesare Pinelli (La Sapienza University of Rome); Thomas Risse (Free University of Berlin); Vivien A Schmidt (Boston University); Arndt Sorge and Michael Zurn (Social Science Research Center of Berlin)

The program was supported by UniCredit Group as the main partner and

by a European Commission grant that FONDACA has received as a European think tank in the framework of the “Europe for Citizens” program

Multiple Links between Single Currency and European

Citizenship

Building citizenship in the post-modern Era: Dimensions

Giovanni Moro

introduction The other side of the coin beyond metaphor

In 1992–3, European citizenship was established in the Maastricht Treaty Ten years later, as an implementation of another provision of the same Treaty, the euro was introduced into 12 countries, becoming the currency

of nearly 300 million citizens of the European Union At first sight, no relevant correlation between these two events can be detected, if not for the obvious fact that both regard individuals who are nationals of one of the EU countries Therefore, “The Other Side of the Coin” formula could

be just a vague metaphor for the “human side” of the single currency and (especially) of the problems affecting common people in Europe In this case, there would not be any need for a scientific community engagement, and good media coverage of the experiences, feelings, and concerns of the people carrying the euro in their pockets would be enough

What is needed, on the contrary, is an effort aimed at unveiling the multiple relations that link the two processes of building citizenship of the Union as an individual, social, institutional, and community phenomenon,

on the one hand, and the establishment of the euro as the currency of the majority of Europeans, on the other

To this end, I will try to identify and define those inner dimensions of the single currency that can be presumed to be connecting it to the European citizenship-building process It is a basic but a necessary exercise Before that, some founding elements of European citizenship intended as a process will be highlighted After that, some reflections on the more general meaning

of the relation between the single currency and European citizenship will be advanced

The rationale for this exercise lies on a phenomenological, rather than normative, approach, which in this case has two main implications The first one is to view the European Union as a “democratic experiment,” that is, an attempt to build a polity and a political community not being a (good or bad) copy of a nation state, thus overcoming any “methodological nationalism” (Beck and Grande 2007, 17–8) The second implication is to consider citizenship as a phenomenon in which people not only benefit from institutional decisions, but also take part in the construction of citizenship itself, being involved in and creating social meanings and relations The introduction of the single currency can be considered to be a top down operation (and this is true), but it cannot be forgotten how citizens have dealt with the euro—in a sense, the most interesting part of the story, which

is the one of a top down and a bottom up process.

European citizenship at stake

The definition exercise of this chapter, however, must not only take into account that the hidden dimensions of the single currency have to be identified, but also that European citizenship itself is “a puzzle” (Bellamy and Warleigh 2001) In other words, it is not clear as to precisely what the single currency would be in relation to Addressing this puzzle in a synthetic

First of all, European citizenship can not only be intended as a fixed juridical status, but also as a process of redefining and increasing the content and extension of citizenship itself Moreover, it goes well beyond its juridical content, covering social, cultural, economic, and political dimensions.All of that can be easily detected if citizenship of the Union is observed

not only in the Treaties, but also in the whole Community Acquis and in

citizenship practices This exercise allows us to view European citizenship without being tied to its two opposite conventional representations: the first, coming from the federal perspective, of an empty box, and the second, reflecting the confederal approach, of a threat to national sovereignty It can therefore be considered as a nonstandard form although it does contain the founding elements of citizenship in general

These elements can be summarized in terms of rights, belonging, and participation As for rights, they include not only those established in the

Treaties (with the addition of the Charter of Fundamental Rights), but also those coming, for example, from the European Court of Justice decisions and from the continuous redefinition of the balance of responsibilities between the EU and national states due to the action of social, political, and civic movements, as in the case of patients’ rights As for belonging, a sense of identity linked to Europe in its civic dimension, not opposed to, but integrated with other identity components (the national one foremost), has emerged

in the majority of EU citizens As for participation, political participation through the vote (local elections included) and civic participation in EU policy making (consultation on decisions, support to implementation), up

to the recent right of citizens to propose new EU legislation, are part of the Community participatory dimension

In sum, after twenty years, the content and extension of Community citizenship have definitely increased, and it remains an ongoing process Regardless of how these developments are evaluated, there is no doubt that

we are dealing with an incremental phenomenon

This phenomenon can be viewed today, including the following elements, for a definition: European citizenship as the membership of citizens of the EU countries to a larger political “civic” community and

of a polity operating as a multilevel and polycentric governance system, based on a set of rights established in the Treaties, and increased over the

years by the Community Acquis and citizenship practices, on a principle

of multiple and difference-based identity, and on people participation both

in the construction of representative institutions and in the public policy making on a daily basis

Having said that about one of the terms of the relation we are dealing with in this chapter, attention can now be devoted to the other term, that is, the single currency with its hidden dimensions

defining the dimensions of the

other side of the coin

Moving to the other side of the coin, four dimensions linking the single currency to European citizenship can be identified as autonomous although they are closely related components of the phenomenon:

Each of these dimensions can be better identified by focusing on certain elements For the sake of being rigorous, these elements should be considered

as observables of those dimensions, or at least as places where the euro citizenship-building effects can be detected, rather than as systematic components of the phenomenon They are summarized in Table 1.1

Cultural dimension

The cultural dimension of the single currency can be defined as the set

of values, representations, and cultural patterns that are referred to by the currency as a repository of symbols It is the context in which the European identity of individuals using the euro is built (Berezin 2003; Delanty and Rumford 2005; Risse 2010) The single currency as a medium for the raising of a collective identity can be observed, considering it both

as a symbol in itself and in the sets of symbols represented in coins and banknotes

As a symbol in itself, the meaning of the single currency is related to the traditional link between currency and state sovereignty In this sense, the euro can be considered as referring to a new political community This

community, however, is detached from the national one: not One Nation,

One Money, but rather, One Money, Many Nations (Kaelberer 2004).

As for euro coins and banknotes, it is well known that they have been conceived as a repository of symbols (Delanty and Rumford 2005, 100; Kaelberer 2004; Shore 2000, 87–122; Vissol n.d.), both general (as the

Table 1.1 Dimensions of “The Other Side of the Coin”

and their observables

• Public sphere

• Citizenship practices

12-star flag) and specific for the new currency The choice was to put both European and national symbols on the coins, with the aim of representing the EU identity as a mix of national and Community elements, while at the same time it was decided to put images coming from the main architectural traditions shared by Europeans on the banknotes, but with no reference to any real object or place (see also Hymans 2004).

So, on the one face, coins show images and symbols related to national traditions, while on the other they display various representations of Europe:

as part of the global world; as a set of countries with their own boundaries;

as a continent without frontiers

As for the banknotes, the images portrayed are gates, arches, windows, and, more importantly, bridges It could be stated that these imaginary objects represent the EU well as an example of imagined community (McNamara, Risse in this book) In any case, it has been correctly said that the euro allows people to carry Europe in their pocket

What is the set of meanings represented by the euro as a repository of symbols? As could be expected due to the nature of European identity, a plurality of them does emerge They can be grouped into six categories in each case with Europe as:

To better catch the relation of these meanings with the building of European identity, it may be worthwhile recalling the distinction proposed by Michael Bruter (2005, 11–7; 85–7) with regard to symbols of European identity

in general The distinction is between two pairs of concepts The first pair distinguishes between the cultural and the civic dimensions of European identity, the first being related to values, traditions, culture, and linked to Europe without borders (from Atlantic to Urals); and the second concerning political institutions, rights, rules of a political community—the European Union The second pair of concepts refers to a cooperative versus integrative dimension: the cooperative one is related to a variety of states and nations that get together in a union preserving their differences; the integrative one regards the fact that these entities merge in a unique entity, supranational

or supra-state

Using these conceptual pairs, the sets of meanings represented in coins and banknotes of the single currency can be structured as follows

It is worth noting that the impact of euro symbols on the European identity

of individuals takes place also in the case—widespread nowadays—in which the single currency is considered with anger, due to its real or supposed responsibility for the present problems affecting Eurozone citizens (the finger-and-moon question) In other words, the money does not need to be loved in order to reach its identity effects (Kaelberer 2007)

Social dimension

The social dimension of the single currency can be defined as the set of interactions, representations, institutions, and communication and exchange relations that give rise to a social environment in which people using the single currency live and belong to From this perspective, the euro can

be considered as a communication tool linking people together

This dimension of the euro can be observed in various elements, three of which seem to have a relevant standing

The first one is the single currency as a language In a Union characterized

by the “polygamy of languages” (Beck and Grande 2007, 103; see also Berezin 2003, 16), the euro is the only existent common language Of course, the euro is not the same as the 23 languages spoken by Europeans Nevertheless, like other nonnatural languages, it is a system of signs asso-ciated with meanings, which works as a communication tool As highlighted below, these meanings cannot be restricted to a purely economic range However, from this point of view, it could be said that those belonging to the Eurozone are “Euro-speaking” countries

Table 1.2 References of euro coin and banknote symbols to Civic/ Cultural and Cooperative/Integrative Dimensions

dimensions/Symbols

Civic/Cultural dimensions

Cooperative/integrative dimensions

Union of National States Civic Cooperative

Set of National Traditions Cultural Cooperative

Common Cultural Heritage Cultural Integrative

System of Democratic Institutions Civic Integrative

Continent Without Borders Cultural Integrative

Bridge Toward Space and Time Civic/Cultural Integrative/Cooperative

Source: Moro 2011, 42.

The second element is that the euro has given rise to a new territory It can be easily observed in the following map of Europe (Figure 1.1).

Looking at this map, some features can be noticed First, the Eurozone does not coincide with the territory of the European Union Before the introduction of the single currency this territory simply did not exist Second,

Eurozone countries

EU countries that have

opted out

EU countries that have not

yet adopted the euro

Non-EU countries using the euro as

national currency

fiGurE 1.1 Map of the Eurozone.

Source: Moro 2011, 54.

the borders are not clean: there are countries that use the single currency, countries that have opted out though participating in the EMU, countries that are supposed to be going to adopt the single currency, countries that use the euro without being members of the European Union (such as Montenegro and Kosovo) Third, there are countries belonging to this territory that are not adjoining (e.g., Finland and Estonia), so it is not easy to consider the Eurozone as similar to a national territory; but at the same time it is difficult not to recognize it as a specific one.

It may be noted (Amico n.d.; Risse 2010, 56–7; Schmidt in this book) that—as in the analogous case of the Schengen area—the euro represents

an example of “variable geometry Europe.” The paradox of a currency conceived to unite the EU citizens that has produced the opposite effect, that

is, to divide them, can also be noted In any case, in terms of identification

of the social dimension of the single currency, it is enough to maintain that

it has given rise to an environment materialized in a territory

A third element that can be observed as part of the social dimension

of the single currency is the system of relations of communication and exchange the euro has favored (see Berezin 2000; Helleiner 2001)

“Communication” and “exchange” in this case would not be considered

in an abstract or metaphoric sense, but rather in a fairly material way This has been observed while studying the phenomenon of the migration of coins from one country to another For example, a study on the “Euro Invasion of France” by German, Spanish, and Belgian coins (Jacobs 2007) showed that between June and September 2002 foreign euro in France almost doubled (from 4.7% to 9.2%) In June, 20 percent of the French had at least one foreign coin in their pocket, while in September there were 48 percent of them, with relevant differences related to regions and areas (e.g., borders

or holiday places) Generally speaking, in the long run it is expected that in each Eurozone country half of the coins used will come from abroad (Moro

2011, 58) It should be added that this matter relates to banknotes as well:

in March 2011 only 39.6 percent of banknotes circulating in Italy had been

issued there (ibidem).

Linked to the social dimension is the most distinguishing character of European citizenship, namely freedom of movement According to recent data, in 2010 almost half (49%) of Eurozone citizens traveled at least once

in another Eurozone country; 64 percent of them maintained that the euro had made it easier to compare prices, 48 percent said that it made it easier and cheaper to travel (European Commission 2010c)

Data on e-commerce support the relevance of freedom of movement: according to a 2007 EIAA research, in that year 80 percent of the European internet users had purchased goods or a service online, with an increase of

100 percent from 2004, and the first two types of goods purchased were travel tickets and package holidays (Moro 2011, 59)

Also from the point of view of “feeling” European, in 2010, 45 percent

of Eurozone citizens identified freedom of movement as the most important

meaning of the EU (European Commission 2010d) It was second only to the euro itself, which resulted as the main meaning associated with the EU for

49 percent In general, freedom of movement and the single currency result

as being the two main meanings of what it is to be a European (respectively, for 45% and 40% of all Europeans)

As for the relation between “being” and “feeling” European, it is worth mentioning that, according to the same 2010 poll, the percentage

of individuals declaring to feel European citizens was 66 percent in the

Eurozone and 54 percent in the non-euro EU countries (ibidem).

Everyday life economy dimension

The third dimension can be defined as the one in which the single currency operates as an agent giving rise to a market, which is one of the founding elements of the EU and Community citizenship This dimension is in fact strictly related to consumption The link between consumption and citizenship is, among those focused on in this chapter, the only actually contested, both by the scientific community (the “market citizenship” argument—see Downes 2001) and by the social and political actors (“We are citizens, not consumers”)

However, information coming from anthropological (Douglas and Isherwood 2001) and historical (Hilton and Daunton 2001) research shows

a dense mesh of relations between consumption—and, in general, material culture—and citizenship Four factors of special importance emerge: the definition of relevant moralities (the boundary between necessity and luxury); the establishment of consumers’ constituency in the interplay between active consumers, commercial and political interests, and discourses based on consumer-related knowledge and expertise; the definition of the economic system by which goods are brought to consumers; the relationship between the consumer, citizenship, and the state (that is, the relation between state intervention in consumption issues and consumers’ participation in the political process) (Hilton and Daunton 2001, 3–5) Therefore, the citizenship profile alters from time to time also due to changes in consumer patterns and dynamics

In this framework, it could be said that the concept of the everyday life economy dimension of the single currency could be grasped considering the euro with regard to three roles

The first one concerns the euro as a unit of measurement or tool of calculation A simple but very relevant example of this is the data on the extent to which the single currency has become consumers’ reference point for calculating the value of goods and services This is evident observing both exceptional purchases, such as buying a house and ordinary purchases,

as shown by the following pair of graphs (Figure 1.2)

These data should not be underestimated, not only in themselves, but also because of its less intuitive meaning That is, the euro as a unit of measurement works to evaluate not only what is expensive and what is cheap, but also what is right and what is wrong, what is fair and what is unfair, and so on

In other words, the role of the single currency as a unit of measurement goes well beyond the mere evaluation of the price of goods and services; it is rather

a general benchmark tool shared by the Eurozone citizens, enabling them to assess, for example, the real accessibility of welfare services, or the value of salaries and then of jobs The single currency as an everyday life economy dimension is therefore a unit of measurement for several social facts and relations; or, in other words, is “a medium of meaning” (Berezin 2000).Another role that can be identified by focusing on everyday life economy dimension of the single currency is that of an exchange tool The empirical aspect of this is self-evident: it lies in commerce, jobs, and enterprises, which have risen in the Eurozone intended as a market It is relevant, from this point of view, that the single currency has eliminated exchange costs, has lowered the costs of bank transfers, and has leveled the burden of accessing credit for individuals and enterprises, also acting as an enabling factor Prices of bank transfers, for example, have dramatically decreased: from

Mental benchmarks for exceptional

Mental benchmarks for ordinary

fiGurE 1.2 The euro and national currencies as mental benchmarks for exceptional and ordinary purchases, 2003–10.

Source: Adapted from European Commission 2010c.

17.3 to 2.4 euro for transferring 100 euro (Moro 2011, 58–9) Although

it is a critical matter nowadays, the reduction of inflation (around 2% for many years) should also be mentioned as well as the leveling of credit costs

to about 4 percent

To sum up, as an exchange tool, the single currency has connected people living or operating in 17 countries, putting them in the position of being actors of a common market Of course, it is well known that the European Union itself has been, from its very beginning, a market evolving

in a nonstandard democratic institutional system Nevertheless, until the changeover, this was a matter of fact for financial institutions, big companies, central banks, and national governments, although not for common citizens With the changeover, Europe as a common market became real for the first time for everyone living in a Eurozone country

A third role of the single currency that can be identified in the dimension

of everyday life economy is of repository of value What kind of value are

we referring to in this case? An obvious but not less important answer to this question is that the value is about goods and services In this framework, the well-known phenomenon of perceived inflation occurred, especially in the first two years after the changeover (Figure 1.3)

In the first years after the changeover, people felt that the value of their money dramatically decreased, due to the increasing prices of goods and services Regardless of the fact that this phenomenon considered mostly proximity and everyday life purchases; or that it was related to global trends

Perceived inflation Actual price inflation HICP

1 2 3 4 5

fiGurE 1.3 Actual and perceived inflation in the euro area, 1995–2004.

Source: European Commission 2006c.

(e.g., the increase in oil or house prices due to 9/11); or that, while prices

of some goods increased, in other cases they decreased (e.g., electronics—Moro 2011, 68–97; see also European Central Bank 2007), the manner

in which the changeover was designed and implemented gave rise to an attribution of value to the currency by the citizens themselves As a direct effect (the euro being, in this case, the moon and not the finger), there was

a self-reduction in consumption, which has been one of the factors of the scant economic growth of the Eurozone In other words, independent of the value that institutions (and the market) attach to the single currency, citizens

do it by themselves

Political dimension

The political dimension of the single currency can be defined as the one

in which the euro acts as a vector for the construction of European polity and political community Three observable elements can be noticed here: institution-building, European public sphere, and citizenship practices

As regards institution-building process, the euro can be observed as an agent—perhaps the most important one—of European integration Borrowing one of Kenneth Dyson’s thematizations regarding EMU (Dyson 2002), it can

be said that the single currency has shaped the integration process since it has prescribed a new policy paradigm: one of a “sound” money and finance With reference to this paradigm, priorities have been defined, policies have been designed, institutions and procedures have been established, and public discourse and agenda have been shaped This paradigm has also given rise to

an institutional model, the Eurozone centered on the European Central Bank Technical-oriented leaderships (or technocrats) have then prevailed over political leaderships, both at Community and at national levels, although with concerns for nonfinancial issues such as economic growth, social rights, and fiscal policy (as shown by the case of the Europe 2020 strategy).Related to the European integration process, the single currency has been the main reference point for the Europeanization of national polities and arenas, where political leaderships have lined up in different ways toward the paradigm of sound money and finance This happened

on the side of both public discourse, with different motivations and thematizations for the introduction of the single currency (internalization

of the external economic imperatives of globalization; dissolution of national identities and sovereignty; means of resistance to the external dependence due to US globalization; and strategy to reconciling the European social model to globalization); and public policies aimed at addressing the new constraints and challenges coming from the euro (accommodation; transformation; inertia; retrenchment - Dyson 2002,

1 ff.; see also Risse 2010, 177–203)

A second component of the political dimension of the single currency is the European public sphere, which in the past ten years—and in particular starting from the 2008 global financial crisis affecting the Eurozone—has clearly been shaped by the single currency itself (see Risse 2010, 122–3; 173–4) There is no doubt that the single currency is by far the most debated topic at national and Community levels Not only political leaderships, public opinion, and media, but also citizens and social forces have centered their attention, discourse, and mobilization around the single currency

No matter here if the euro is the “finger” or the “moon” (probably both); what is really important is that the single currency has caused a dramatic growth of the European public sphere, in the sense of a common space where citizens have taken the floor—literally or metaphorically—dealing with their common fate depending on the single currency, perhaps in a deliberative manner

A third component of the political dimension of the single currency can be noticed in citizenship practices, intended as the dynamic relations

of citizens with the polity (Wiener 1998), one of the building blocks of citizenship in general Of course, citizenship practices do not regard the political dimension alone As we have already noticed, freedom of movement

is undoubtedly such a practice Nevertheless, in the political dimension, specific practices take place and their value should not be underestimated The most visible practices, nowadays, are the various forms of public and political participation in the Eurozone turmoil, ranging from the efforts

of civic organizations to represent constituencies that are the targets of public spending reduction policies but have no voice in decision making, such as young unemployed, immigrants, deprived communities, to social

movements, such as the Spanish Indignados But voting is probably the most

important citizenship practice related to the single currency

In this regard, it could be said that a relevant connection between institution-building, public sphere, and citizenship practices with reference

to the single currency can be observed by focusing on citizens’ participation

in elections that took place in the first half of 2012, from the French presidential elections to the double vote in Greece, from the North Rhine–Westphalia Land elections in Germany to local elections in Italy In all these cases the euro—which was strongly (though not necessarily in depth) debated

in the European public sphere as a matter of common, though conflicting, interests—has become the real stake of elections, and the citizens’ choices have pushed for a change in the euro institutional paradigm, which is currently on the table of European leaders

In this way, the single currency, which has become at the same time a policy issue and a political stake, could affect that “divorce” between policy and politics that has been till now a distinguishing element of the EU in comparison with the member states (the EU as “policy without politics,” and vice versa for the member states—see Schmidt 2006, 22 ff.)

Conclusions The euro citizenship effect, and vice versa

Having defined the dimensions linking the single currency to European citizenship through their observables, an attempt to formulate some hypotheses on the ways in which this link operates can be made In addition, some reflections on the reverse relation, that is, the citizenship–euro effect, will be reported as well

What can be said, then, on the ways in which the single currency shapes European citizenship? Multiple answers can be put on the table

One kind of answer to this question is that the single currency operates as

a citizenship agent in three ways It acts as a constraint, in the sense that it sets the perimeter and limits into which citizenship is built and can be practiced Then, it acts as a paradigm, since it establishes the ways in which citizenship can work Finally, it acts as a cognitive and operational space, where individuals are socialized as European citizens and relate with each other and with their polity

A second kind of answer is that the single currency has an impact on the fundamental components of citizenship From the point of view of rights, it prioritizes citizens’ rights and establishes the material conditions for their exercise From that of identity, it builds and reinforces the sense

of belonging to the European community, in terms of both “feeling” and

“being” European And from the point of view of participation, it is the stake

at which the debate in the European public sphere and both conventional and unconventional political struggles take place

A third kind of answer is that the single currency shapes the content of European citizenship itself To highlight this point it is sufficient to go back

to some of the elements we have dealt with previously As a cultural agent, the single currency has defined European identity as a multiple phenomenon, including national and Community as well as civic and cultural elements As a social agent, the single currency has reinforced the European citizens’ common environment, based on freedom of movement As an everyday life economy agent, it has materialized the EU as a common market, where citizen consumers not only exchange goods and services, but also interact to build material and nonmaterial value As a political agent, it has catalyzed the Eurozone as a political community and a common—although in trouble—polity

With regard to the reverse relation, from citizenship to currency, the most important point to be considered is that European citizenship is a trust agent

in favor of the single currency It means that citizenship has produced the link of common culture and interdependence among individuals, which is necessary to make the single currency work (Kaelberer in this book; see also Servet 1999; Delanty and Rumford 2005, 80–81) Without trust among their users, no currency could function; and this is of crucial importance in the case of the euro: it could be indeed said that, even if the single currency

is money without a state, it is not without citizens

Recent polls (Pew Research Centre 2012) confirm that while citizens (especially those living in the countries that are at the center of the storm)

do not love the single currency, they do not want to revert to their national currencies A currency—and especially the euro—does not need to be popular to function as a citizenship-building agent

Building citizenship in the postmodern era

Concluding this chapter, we should focus on the more general meaning—or heuristic value—that the research on the link between the single currency and European citizenship could have

Traditional, nation state-based citizenship is built through a set of institutions, social facts, and social relations that individuals and commu-nities are involved in, from language to territory, from (civil) religion to social capital, from civil society associations to political parties and institutions, from military service to primary schools, and so on All these elements are citizenship building blocks in their fundamental dimensions of rights, belonging, and participation, since they socialize individuals to citizenship.However, in the postmodern era, and especially in the context of globalization, most of these institutions, social facts, and social relations have lost their function, or are no longer shared by the people, even when they live together, or at worst no longer exist (see Delanty 2000; Isin 2000; Taylor 2010) This new situation, while it somehow explains the weakening

of traditional forms of citizenship, establishes new conditions (or constraints) for citizenship building in the postmodern era

In this framework, money appears as one of the few social facts still operating toward linking people together in a nonpurely market way.Citizenship of the European Union is probably the first attempt (or experiment) of building a citizenship in postmodern era, precisely because it lacks the most part of the above-mentioned building blocks, with the only exception of money Therefore, observing the relation between the single currency and the European citizenship-building process is in some way an extraordinary opportunity to study and further define how citizenship is built in the postmodern era Finally, we could consider this relation as a field experiment, which is able to offer new information on one of the most challenging phenomena of contemporary societies

notes

1 I am grateful to those colleagues who have given substantial insights for this

chapter: Marina Calloni, Sergio Fabbrini, Paolo Graziano, Daniela Piana, Francesco Raniolo, Vivien Schmidt, Michele Sorice, Ennio Triggiani, and Ugo Villani A special thanks to Lucia Mazzuca and Roberto Ranucci, my FONDACA fellows in “The Other Side of the Coin” program.

2 For a broader treatment of this subject, see Moro 2012, 35–51.

Imaginary Europe: The euro

as a symbol and practice

Kathleen R McNamara

introduction

What is the relationship, if any, between currency and citizenship? This question is not merely of academic interest Instead, it is critically important for the real-world challenges that the European Union is facing today The euro reached its tenth birthday only to be engulfed in a European sovereign debt crisis that has riled national bond markets and eroded confidence in the entire European project Understanding the ways in which currency may shape citizenship is important to grasping the impact of the crisis, and the potential paths forward for Europe

Historically, currencies and citizenship have moved in perfect lockstep with each other, as the nation-states of the nineteenth century created single currencies, consolidating different monies into one, as part of often brutal state and nation-building projects (McNamara 2011, 2010b) A single currency arose as a tool of the newly centralized, bureaucratized modern nation-state, allowing for a range of activities, such as revenue raising, spending, and borrowing, that extended the state’s administrative reach Such currencies encouraged the deepening of an integrated single market and gave political elites the ability to fight wars, solidifying the boundaries and political capacities of the states themselves If currency helps make the nation-state, then it logically makes sense that currency makes citizenship,

as part of the process of creating a nation

Things are never that simple, of course Citizens do not automatically appear in the process of nation-state building, and the evolution of the levers

of power and administrative capacity to the center of a defined political unit do not always create feelings of trust and identity among the people involved There is a complex process that must occur for political authority

to be genuinely transferred to the center of a political unit, and it is not a foregone conclusion that it will happen smoothly or end successfully There are multiple ways for this process to occur, and this project, “The Other Side of the Coin,” usefully explores many of them To contribute to this exploration, I frame the relationship between citizenship and the single currency in terms of the need for political authorities to create an “imagined community” of Europeans

I argue that it is this “imaginary Europe” that provides the necessary raw cultural material for meaningful European Union citizenship The euro, as both symbol and practice, can contribute to the construction of this imagined community, even as the euro’s own success depends in part on the sturdiness

of that very construction But the EU is uniquely hampered, perhaps fatally,

in its efforts to use symbols and practices to create community Because the EU is a historical innovation in governance that continues to coexist with its political predecessors, it cannot build the cultural foundation for its political authority in the same way as nation-states have In the long sweep of history, successful political forms such as the nation-state have always eventually displaced the previous forms, be they Italian city-states, the Hanseatic League, or the Holy Roman Empire In contrast, the EU must coexist, coordinate, and celebrate existing nation-states, along with their traditions and political authority, both symbolic and material Although clever strategies have been used by EU officials to try to navigate these dilemmas, the cultural infrastructure for integration remains fragile

This chapter begins with a discussion of the concept of imagined communities and their linkages to citizenship I then turn to the mechanisms

of community construction, focusing on the role of symbols and practices in constructing the “social fact” of European political authority, and the potential

of symbols and practices to engender a sense of belonging to an “imaginary Europe.” I tease out some of the specific ways that the euro is symbolically constructed through images and representation, then turn to the ways in which practices reinforce that construction Throughout, I highlight the contradictions and tensions in this political process of meaning construction

in the EU The chapter concludes with my thoughts on the implications of this research for the future of the euro and Europe as a whole

imagined communities and European citizenship

Political authority is a necessary part of governing Getting people to obey your edicts, laws, rules, and norms is much easier and less costly if you

do not have to employ coercion but rather are viewed as legitimate One underpinning for that authority is a sense of collective identity on the part

of those being led If a community perceives some shared, communal ties binding them together, the work of a governing polity is much more easily accomplished This is particularly true in times of transformation and change, when uncertainty or competing authorities may shake up expectations and loyalties The invention of the nation-state presented particular challenges for political elites, as it scaled up the organization of political rule to encompass larger geographical territories and often, different ethnic, tribal, religious, or cultural groups Whereas the Holy Roman Empire might create ties based on the shared Catholic identity of its members, the nation-state had to create a new sense of political identity that would reorient its citizens toward the new central authority of the state Notably, in contrast to earlier political forms, the nation-state demanded exclusive, sovereign, territorially limited political identities, not the overlapping loyalties and overlapping patchwork geography of medieval rule (Ruggie 1993)

Benedict Anderson’s (1993) concept of an “imagined community,” well

community is one in which citizens have a shared conception of an embodied political space, where people have a sense of belonging together despite never knowing each other personally Whereas in early forms of political organization, such as the village, or tribe, it was possible for all to have some personal connection to each other, if not directly, then indirectly through

a cousin or other clansman or neighbor, as the larger-scale nation-state developed, this personal connection became impossible Therefore, some new ways of creating the bonds of community had to be forged to hold together the newly enlarged national polity by creating a sense of belonging among its citizens Today, given the scaling up of political authority that has occurred in the twenty-seven member state EU, the task of creating such a community in Europe is even more daunting

Most important for thinking about the EU’s challenges, however, is that the device for creating this new national-level bond rests in our imaginations The most powerful way of understanding the dynamics of the cultural construction at work is to see how images and representations, as well as practice, are key to creating meaning in a specific cultural setting (Wedeen 2002) For example, because the political relationship someone in Cornwall might share with any given family in Oxford cannot be directly and personally experienced, it has to be filtered through a common set of ideas and experiences of being English This relationship, being abstract and not personal, requires imagining, and therefore has to be represented symbolically This symbolic representation is strengthened when it is undergirded through shared practices, so that “thinking” is reinforced by “doing.” Rituals, be they very clearly linked to political identities or more banal, provide a way to put into action shared symbols, even though they are experienced in parallel rather than interactively So the family in Cornwall might sing the “God

Save the Queen” while watching the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, while a couple in Oxford does the same, putting the symbol (the national anthem) into practice (singing at a virtually shared event).

Although national identities are largely taken for granted today in the West, the feeling of belonging to a distinct sovereign nation of people is a cultural artifact, one created, not organic or primordial Whereas some argue that centuries old hatreds or identities are intrinsic and unchanging and thus

to blame for outcomes of conflict, the sociological view insists that these identities are malleable and created through social interactions over time, rather than fixed and genetic Ambitious empirical work across a variety of European cases has emphatically made this point Historian Eugen Weber

in his monumental book Peasants into Frenchmen (1976) traces out how

a plethora of state policies in education, new national holidays, intensive language training, and other measures were necessary to corral a fragmented country into the French nation that up until beyond the nineteenth century had only a tenuous sense of being French An astonishing study of the development of Scottish national sentiments based on the notion of the Highland Traditions has likewise traced many of the purportedly “ancient” Hibernian traditions (Scottish clans with distinct tartans made up into kilts and so on), to a combination of creative hucksters writing in the early nineteenth century and romantic leanings on the part of various members of Scottish society (Trevor-Roper 1983)

These accounts of the rise of the nation emphasize the particular political tools, symbols, and technologies intentionally welded by motivated actors, alongside broader structural changes that provided fertile ground for reorganization of political identities They should therefore make us wary

of assuming the “intrinsic” or essential nature of member-state nationalism

as a bar to any such development at the European level, while also not seeing that nationalism as easily malleable or replaceable The obstacles to a European imagined community may be plentiful and real, but, to understand the potential and the challenge, we need to turn our attention to the question

of the actual processes by which such imagined communities arise, or fall apart—a critical one for our exploration of the ways in which the euro may link to citizenship The current Eurozone crisis indicates the pitfalls

of attempting to govern over a polity that does not necessarily identify itself as one Although seemingly robust nation-states with strong imagined communities also can fall prey to divisive and potentially self-destructive political divisions in times of economic crisis, the EU seems particularly challenged in this regard

The reasons for this special level of challenge to creating a sense of European citizenship in an imagined community are clear While many important governance functions have been transferred to the EU level in Brussels, Frankfurt, Luxembourg, and elsewhere, the nation-state still is the overwhelming primary locus of authority for member state citizens The euro exemplifies this The euro was created in 1999 as part of the EU’s

Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), with a European Central Bank (ECB) at the center of EMU to govern over it But EMU was disembedded from the larger governing structures that support currencies nationally

in every existing nation-state Most importantly, no broader economic governance capacity was created at the EU level to oversee fiscal and financial regulatory issues or a eurobond type debt instrument Decision making was left at the national level, with the euro and the ECB floating out alone at the European level, disconnected and ultimately in conflict with the national-level institutions and authorities The designers of EMU believed that Europe was not ready for an explicit transfer of taxing, spending, and debt to the EU level, because of the pull of national sovereignty and the lack

of a sense of common European identity For the euro to succeed, such a larger economic governance structure must be built, but it must occur hand

in hand with a process of broader authority construction at the European level to legitimate and democratize the EU The following section explores the ways in which the euro project creates social representations and practices that provide some foundation for a sense of European citizenship

in an imagined community But the euro’s particular construction, on top of robust national identities, also highlights the ways in which the EU is severely hampered in these efforts, producing a weak sense of imagined community

as it tries to situate Europe as complementary to, not a replacement for, national citizenship

navigating the nation-state: localizing Europe

The euro as a symbol

Political actors, be they states or EU, have to be reified before they can be actors and sites of legitimate authority In other words, they must be represented through images and symbols, and experienced in practice If successful, this process makes the EU into a taken-for-granted “social fact.” Social facts

are shared ideas so obvious that most people think of them as objective

facts, forgetting that these facts are dependent on shared, intersubjective understandings for their existence Paper currency is a nice example A piece

of paper with a euro symbol on it takes on the status of money because we all act “as if” the paper is money, rather than merely a representation of value If one person stops believing that a 5 euro bill is worth less than a

50 euro bill, it will have no impact on its status as a social fact However,

if there is a widespread rejection of the value of the 5 versus 50 symbol

on the euro, the social fact will break down in the midst of hyperinflation Durkheim describes social facts as ways of thinking and acting, collective beliefs and practices, that derive from membership in particular societies, or substratum of societies, and, over time through repetition, come to constitute

a reality in their own right, quite distinct from the individuals that produce them (Durkheim 1939, 7) He emphasizes the coercive, if subtle, power that these social facts exert These taken-for-granted things, which we “know” without consciously thinking, and act within, come to have, in Durkheim’s words, a “constraining” effect on actors In the case of the EU, if it is taken for granted as a social fact, its fundamental existence as a political actor

is not contested, although its policies and programs may be (McNamara 2010a; Cram 2012)

What are some of the symbolic dynamics at work with the euro, and how

do they relate to European citizenship? The creation of EMU, with the euro and the ECB at its center, brought the EU both a powerful economic policy tool and a way to symbolically represent Europe as a bounded political entity (Risse 2003; Kaelberer 2004; Manners 2011) It also provided an avenue for new sets of experiences that reshaped the logic of practice for participants in Euroland The very fact of a physical object like the euro signals the presence of the EU and makes it real for citizens EMU is rife with such symbols: in its physical currency of paper and coins, in the ECB tower,

in the value of the euro as an exchange rate traded on world markets, in the generation of economic data that uses Europe, not national economies, as its frame of reference All of these elements of EMU underpin the EU as a social fact, symbolizing the centralization of authority to the European level, and the creation of an imagined community of Europe Their particular content and form also can tell us quite a bit about the specific contours of what that community is and the values associated with it, as well as giving

us clues about where points of contestation will rise, and the likely forms of citizenship we might expect

Most strikingly, the EU’s imagined community rests on symbols that seek to carefully navigate the preexisting loyalties and identities of the (ever robust) European nation-states while establishing a separate European sphere Processes of standardization, on the one hand, and localization, on the other, are being used to symbolically navigate the symbolic terrain of monetary integration Standardization uses abstraction and de-localization

to invoke a unifying universality, while localization processes have attempted

to resituate preexisting loyalties, symbols, and authorities within a larger European sphere

A single currency shapes political communities through processes of symbolic standardization and replacement: at the most general level, as euros replace francs, symbolic forms shift and become universalized rather than localized Likewise, the reframing and re-categorization of economic data into “European” inflation, or the ECB’s announcement of a universal EMU interest rate involves a conceptual standardization and melding into one of “like” things The iconography of the paper currency of the euro is similarly standardized across all twelve participating member states All of the paper currency denomination have the same shaded map of Europe, with no distinct states but rather a single geography The currency features

designs of vaguely European architecture without specificity, not anchored

in any particular place or actual physical structure The images feature bridges and windows, with the lowest denominations showing older, more historic images (Romanesque arches), moving through time up to modern architecture for the higher denominations As Jacques Hymans (2004, 2006) has argued, this particular iconography reflects the desire of European officials to highlight the openness and open-endedness of the integration project Indeed, these images were chosen in a very carefully orchestrated and a carefully considered design competition and process of choosing the physical representations on both paper currency and coins (Barker-Aguilar 2003; Shore 2000) The euro’s iconography is also emblematic of the careful balancing of national and European symbols The euro’s paper currency

is standardized and uses European symbols, maps, or nonspecific images exclusively However, each participating member state issues its own coins with standard European imagery on the one side and national symbols and portraits on the other

The iconography of the euro also is interesting for its content, and what

it implies about the type of imagined community being built EU has often relied on seemingly deracinated, technocratic, and somewhat emotionally superficial symbols and practices, rather than attempting to mine the deeper, more emotional roots of national identities The paper currency of the euro provides a nice illustration: while it redraws the lines of Euroland, the pictorial representation of the EU draws on abstract images rather than historical figures or scenes that might have specific referents The imagery suggests a community that is simultaneously inclusive and undefined as to its borders

or specificity, which is omni-present and yet nowhere in particular (Hymans 2004) However, the paper currency presents a deracinated, abstracted set

of universal architectural images It is a paper currency without specific referents, no particular historical figures

The actual symbol of the euro has come to signal EU as a sort of logo, recognizable from afar, and universally readable in any language Very few currencies in circulation have their own widely recognized graphic symbol

or currency sign The British pound (£), Japanese yen (¥), and US dollar ($), and now the euro (€) are the world’s most commonly used currency signs The euro’s glyph or graphic representation is a shorthand that comes to signal Europe Oddly, the euro symbol does not appear on the paper currency, only

on the coins, but does appear on every price tag in Euroland, on shoppers’ receipts, in currency exchange bureaus in airports, on computer keyboards, and in the business section of the newspaper The euro exchange rate value has become another standardized, numerical focal point representing Europe, offering an external face of a standardized, consolidated Europe to the world With the rise in the value of the euro over its decade of existence, and stability even through perilous economic stress in the Eurozone crisis, the European currency’s appreciation may act as a source of symbolic strength It also allowed euro holders to go on spending sprees on trips

to the US, giving those travelers a sense of superiority in Apple stores and the Gap, even as it makes EU products less competitive in world markets Extensive commentary prior to the recent crisis about the euro displacing the dollar as the international reserve currency of choice constitutes a status marker for Europeans as well More recently, however, as bonds within the participating states are now denominated in euros, even as they are tied to the national economies (as in Spanish eurobonds or French eurobonds), the precipitous decline of certain European economies has meant vastly negative associations with those Greek euro-denominated bonds, even as the German eurobonds are a source of stability For our discussion, the negative and positive both add up to symbolic representations Even as they may have normatively different content, they both signify the EU’s presence in EU citizens’ lives, for good or ill, just as the burning of the EU flag in a Greek square asserts the EU as an authoritative, if despised in the moment, actor.

The EMU and the euro are not only about standardization, but also about engaging in processes of localization that are happening in ways different from the more monolithic consolidation of national currencies in the nineteenth century In many instances, the symbols of EMU contextualize Europe explicitly within the extant nation-states rather than attempting to displace national identities As such, the implicit message is that the various member-state nationalities can be understood as embedded within Europe, complementary to and situating what is local or national within a broader European setting This is most evident in the iconography of the euro coins

in their iconography construct a complementary and simultaneous Europe that coexists with the national political entities, many of which do use traditional figurative symbols deeply rooted in national culture (as with Queen Beatrix on Dutch coins) That the euro coins have both a standardized

EU side and a nationally specific design on the other side neatly reflects the potential for the EU to allow for a “marble cake” identity of complementary and coexisting political allegiances, where the adoption of one can occur without the exclusion of the other but rather simultaneously (Risse 2010; Raento et al 2004) The iconography materially and symbolically situates the member-state nations within the EU, rather than placing them in opposition

The symbols on the euro are also carefully constructed in terms of the representations of the literal mapping of Europe In contrast to the standardized and indistinct map on the paper currency, the coins offer a richer array of geographic expressions of what Europe is: a unified image of

a community of Europe with no borders appears on the most valuable coins (1 and 2 euros); of a group of sovereign and distinct states on lower value coins (on 10, 20, and 50 cent coins); and as a region in a global context on the least valuable coins (on 1 and 5 cent coins) This telescoping out from the most to least valuable representations of Europe places an emphasis on the heart of Europe (although still with blurred boundaries) with reference both